War on terror 'making world more insecure'

By Sean O'Neill

The US-led "war on terror" has made the world a more insecure place than at any time since the end of the Cold War, Amnesty International said yesterday.

Britain and the United States are both condemned in Amnesty's annual report for 2002 for eroding human rights in their crackdown on terrorism following the September 11 attacks.

"What would have been unacceptable on September 10, 2001, is now becoming almost the norm," said Irene Khan, general secretary of the London-based rights watchdog. "What would have been an outrage in Western countries during the Cold War - torture, detention without trial, truncated justice - is readily accepted in some countries today for some people."

People around the world felt "more insecure today than ever since the end of the Cold War".

Amnesty's report was particularly critical of the record of America, which has interned without trial more than 600 people at its naval base in Cuba and an unknown number at Bagram in Afghanistan. Requests for access to both prison camps have elicited no response.

Amnesty complained that the deaths of two detainees at Bagram - where there have been reports of torture - had not been investigated.

The 311-page report also criticised "serious human rights violations" in Britain. It focused on the indefinite detention without charge or trial - on the basis of "secret evidence" - of 11 foreign terrorist suspects.

"Many of those detained under 'anti-terrorism' legislation or on the basis of extradition warrants were held in inhuman or degrading conditions in high-security prisons," it said.

Human rights had improved in Afghanistan, Amnesty noted, but "essential institutions, including the police, prisons and judiciary, were undermined by a tenuous security situation". It urged British and US forces to get a grip on the law and order situation in Iraq to prevent similar developments there.

It also condemned the violence of the Israeli forces and Palestinian terror groups. Ms Khan said: "Governments are not entitled to respond to terror with terror. They are obliged at all times to act within the framework of international human rights and humanitarian law."

A Home Office spokesman defended the emergency powers used to intern foreign terrorist suspects in Britain as a "necessary and proportionate response to the threat we face".